Even though at the moment I’m swamped with work, duties, and life (because life is voracious), I really wanted to update the blog. One of these duties that keep piling, that I should be working on, is that of making a small fanzine about German pop. I’ll be in Berlin in less than a month and Luise and me are trying to do a little zine to celebrate the scene that is happening right now as well as some old favourite records from the past. There seems to be a healthy scene happening in Germany overall, with new-ish clubs as Adventure Playground, Hit the North, the Pop Kombinat! and the Pop Assistants. And I really believe they deserve some praise. So hopefully for the evening of the 9th, we’ll have these available. That night I’ll be at a small club called the Schwalbe djing, alongside with Uwe Firestation and Andy Pop Assistants, some favourite tunes. Really looking forward to that. If you happen to be in Berlin, please come by. I’ll post a flyer as soon as I finish that too (another thing to get done!).
While going through the German pop records I have, checking which ones would be best to recommend on the zine, I ended up with pulling out of my boxes a She Splinters Mortar 7″. But this one couldn’t wait. I had to play it immediately. While the record spinning dizzily on the turntable, I keep getting flashbacks of what I have to do. There’s a couple of interviews to do, there’s a release today on the Cloudberry Classics by Kosmonaut, the band from Stephen Almighty Pop! after Bulldozer Crash, there’s getting together some CDs to DJ later in Berlin, Stockholm and Hamburg, there’s writing the new Cloudberry zine, there’s artwork to be done for Plastilina releases, and there seems that the etcetera keeps growing as well. The horoscope witch said that September was going to be a tough month, a busy month, and she seems right. She says among other things: “These are nerve wrecking, draining aspects and you must do all you can to protect your health. Life events may wear you down, and should you feel overwhelmed, call a friend or a therapist, and do all you can to get more rest. ” Tough luck for me, seems resting is not an option. She does splinter mortar.
The 7″s continues to play. 2 songs on each side. I was recommended this 7″ by Uwe a long time ago. I haven’t played it for months and it sounds as fresh as the first time. On the A side you find “Straight From Her Heart” and “Goldmine”. On the B side there’s “All Comes Out” and “Bird of Prey”. The music, the nerve, the style, the way the guitars chime, they sound as if they were part of the Leamington Spa series! Immediately, for some reason, I’m reminded to the Reserve while listening to “Goldmine”, and perhaps to The Visitors too… but then maybe I’m just thinking of similar song titles? The bass line is great on this tune, which I think it’s my favourite. “All Comes Out” Is also really nice! This one has jangly, clean guitars, very similar to the Desert Wolves guitar textures. So who are these She Splinters Mortar? There’s a mysterious name on the record labels. It says: Harald Dawo. A quick google search says that Harald Dawo is a car photographer based in Cologne. Could that be him? I wonder so. The record was indeed recorded in Cologne, which is quite a hint to believe it could be him. It was recorded in September 1987 at the Whitehouse Studios. There are some other names, the sound technician was Detlev Schmitz, who also did the production and mixing, and Bernd Bodtländer, who took the photos of the band for the sleeve. Also this is the first release on the Die Schwarze Sieben label, which was based in Wiesbaden.
There seems to be at least another 7″ by the band with the A side “Distress”. Never heard this one. Also there is an album called “Jaguar” which was released in 87 as well. Never seen this one either. Also Twee.net lists a tape called “Rund Um Die Welt” were the song “Mind Cries Mary” was included.
And that’s about all the information there is available I think. And of course, if you are up to solving the mystery about this really nice band, do it! Any anecdotes or information is always welcome! And now I should go get some more stuff done, but first, I have to give the record another spin.
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